


New Eden

by julieschmulie



Category: We Know the Devil (Visual Novel)
Genre: Abstract, Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, Misgendering, Only Briefly - Freeform, Other, Religion, Slurs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:54:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25058812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/julieschmulie/pseuds/julieschmulie
Summary: An exercise in recreating fable, telling the myth of three lovers who created a new life for themselves.An abstract reinterpretation of We Know the Devil.
Relationships: Jupiter/Neptune (We Know the Devil), Jupiter/Neptune/Venus (We Know the Devil), Jupiter/Venus (We Know the Devil), Neptune/Venus (We Know the Devil)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	New Eden

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, thanks for reading. So, uh, this one is kind of weird? I am trying to do a somewhat experimental thing with the emotional content of the story, sort of as an abstract retelling of the True Ending from each of the girls' emotional perspectives. So basically this may be dumb as hell, but I hope you like it. I'd love to hear what you think, so feel free to comment your thoughts. Thanks!

Group West arrived at the bonfire late. Neptune had taken extra time to put on her eyeliner, ignoring Venus’ anxious pleas to hurry up. The bonfire captain looked them over as they entered the circle, tutting in dissapointment at the three.

“Group West, you’re late again. What am I going to do with you three?”

“Sorry sir… we got sidetracked.” Venus’ voice was meek, his eyes respectfully averted from the Bonfire Captain. He was trying to disappear into the crowd of campers, vanishing into another body.

“Well, I’m glad y’all showed up. Tonight I have another parable to share. A story from my youth, if you will.” He began to lightly strum his guitar, the jangle of the strings drowning out any thoughts that the campers might have. “It goes a little something like this...”

-

_They are so good together, like you wouldn’t expect. Like gin on a sweltering day. There isn’t room for more. They are so good and they know that I’m not._

_They left me out. They left me in an act of kindness. I had a shot at heaven, but I blew it. I gave in at the gates, sealed myself in a double bind. It’s like it never even happened. I want to do it again._

_It’s sweltering in here. It chokes the breath out of you. The only thing my lungs are finding is thick and hot, like breathing in a cloud of lust and hate. My heart is like a hurt child, she hasn’t realized that this is forever. Do me this kindness and please, let me back in._

_-_

_They are beautiful. Their eyes are closed, they closed them on purpose. They are ignoring the truth of the night. They don’t see the real me, only the shell of the boy who will be shucked like the husk of corn._

_You wouldn’t see the peel of a clementine and say that was the gospel truth, would you? You haven’t even reached the sweet flesh underneath, the needs and wants of the body. What you see isn’t always what you get, and I want to make the unseen seen. I want to want. I want to need. I want to express my needs._

_You are like children, not questioning the muddy ground under your feet. Let me help you see. Skepticism is a powerful drug, Try a taste, and you’ll learn. Do me this kindness and see me._

_-_

_They are good, but they don’t know it. They’ve been fed lies and hate by the people who say they love them, but they have the gall to call me poison? You need to be a little fucked up to survive._

_You want to save me from my better nature? Fuck you, my better nature is the truest thing I know. I might taste sour or bitter, but there’s no cloying sugar to hide a rotten core. It’s an act of kindness to fuck up, to be fucked up._

_Your truth is like hate slipped into perfumed wine, I’m just revealing the drink for what it is. Do me this kindness and drink of me, until you realize what you’re worth._

_-_

_I feel like my body is holding a starved animal._

_It prowls in the corner, a hungry dog on a choke chain collar. It paces in circles watching. They can see it. They know it’s there, and they know better than to approach it. My mother knows it. My dad knows it. The Captain knows it._

_Just when I thought that works would sell me a back entrance, the script was flipped. Grace is given to those who are good, who are deserving. People say no-one deserves grace, it is freely given to all. They are lying. They know sinners when they see them. They know what I want to do._

_They can see me._

_The caged part of myself will break free. I will bite and snarl and tear with an iron jaw. A thunderstorm doesn’t caress, it rips and breaks and smashes what it will. I tried so hard but now I have to face the music._

_-_

_You have made some critical mistakes in how you see me._

_I act good because I have no choice. Being good is a different thing entirely. You think I’m good. I’m not, I’m a bad kid. We’re bad kids._

_You’re so good for each other that it makes me want to cry. You’re sweet and tender and oh so desirable. I used to think in my quiet moments that I wanted to be you, but that isn’t true. I want to be seen by you, and I want to keep you after._

_I want to have my cake and eat it, every last crumb, every last morsel of frosting. I want it all, and I want you to see that. You will see that, as if you have any choice in the matter. I will pry your eyes open and let myself in, until the light suffuses your body and we are all free._

_-_

_I’ve been told I’m a malignant influence._

_Disease is non-negotiable. You don’t reason with a cancer, you burn it out, making the body sick in the process. I don’t want you to burn me out. I want you to drink me in. If the Captain had his way I would be cut from your breasts like a tumor._

_You’re so much better and you don’t even realize it. You think you’re evil and corrupt, but we are already the same. Fucking you up forever is my goal, but you don’t realize that you’re already screwed. It’s a double bind. Fake being ok, let yourself self destruct, either way you’re miserable and a forgotten footnote. Damned to hell for being born different._

_So fuck that noise. You don’t have to bend, you don’t have to break. You’re better than that. When I’m through with you, God’s vision of you will be broken and you can become who you’ve always been._

_-_

_I want to hit, to touch, to be touched. I want to grab, pet, fuck. All of me has been hollowed out to carry this want. I ignored it for so long and it carved out every other feeling in my body, leaving me with nothing but a dull ache in my hands, reminding me how empty they are._

_It’s not okay, and I won’t give in without a fight. I tried so so hard, but in the end I was always meant to fail. Don’t try to pretend I don’t deserve this, lying is a bad look on you. You’re so pretty, it makes me feel like I’m falling. You both are so pretty. You think I’m some meek little girl but I’m a raging storm._

_Endless. Angry. Bloody._

_-_

_I want to see myself clearly. I want to you to see it too. For however many years, I have seen myself as in a mirror, dimly. Ancient shadows moving in primordial alkahest, long forgotten leviathans in the clay. My barest of parts as unknowable as the void._

_Let me go, god damn you. Let me be this better person, let me be what I have always been inside. You can’t run from the light of the sun, you can only tuck yourself into the dark corners of the earth, hiding from life and pretending you are living how you should. The sun is kind and sustaining, but it is also harsh, blinding, and boiling._

_-_

_Everyone has told me what I am. Delilah, Jezebel, Bathsheba, Lilith. Slut, whore, dyke. I didn’t choose this body, I didn’t ask for any of this. So what if I had? You act as if fucking poisons a person, as if the only way anyone dies good is as a child, sexless and untouched by their own bodies._

_Fuck that. Fuck you for even saying that. This is the new kindness, the kindness of soft bodies in the dirt, the kindness of loving yourself and letting that love spill onto everything else. You call it poison because people will realize that you are the bastards who chained them down to the ground and called it grace. We’ll be free, and you will have no choice but to realize that you were wrong._

_-_

_We want to share ourselves with you. We want you to touch us, to pet us, to fuck us. It doesn’t make you broken for wanting to do those things. Wanting is our natural state, whether it be a want for love, sex, companionship, or freedom. If it’s inhuman that’s ok. We can be more than human. We’ll love you even when you don’t love yourself._

_When we’re through with you, you’ll never be alone again._

_-  
_

_We will see you. We’re sorry we ever looked away. The you that others like, we know that you hate it, and we want to help you strip it away and be the purest form of yourself. You’re endless and bright, and give life to those you see. We’ll help you be that part of you. We love that part of you._

_You’ll never feel unseen again, because we don’t want to look away any more._

_-_

_We know that you’re right. Even if we don’t want to admit it. We often wondered if your treatment of us was cruelty or kindness, but now we see that it was love. Love to share the mean parts of yourself, the parts of you that others called ugly. You loved us before we could love ourselves._

_We’ll accept you into ourselves, and we all will be able to save ourselves with our love._

_-_

_This is a new kind of touch, where the boundaries of our skin can give way, letting ourselves intermingle with the other. We don’t have to be alone anymore, we don’t have to hate ourselves, to bend ourselves to the point of breaking in the image of a God we didn’t ask for. We can be so much more than ourselves._

_We have to reach out and take it, but the reaching out is the hardest part. To strip away the expectations that we wear in our bodies, becoming the manifestation of what we want, what we could be. Letting the soft animals of our bodies want what they want, without guilt or judgement._

_Love ourselves in a way that has always seemed impossible. But it isn’t, and you all will know that love yourselves. Our paradise will leave no one behind, for we know you also ache for release. We can all be free._

_This is a New Eden._


End file.
